Good fortune within the bad fortune.

Monday 19/11/18; Rodney Bay, St Lucia

Some readers of this blog have asked for fewer calamitous reports of the good ship Shanti’s misadventures, and so I have sugar-coated these latest events by considering the multitudinous good fortune within the bad. Bear with me.

The amazingly great fortune of being here.

The sail from Bequia to St Lucia via the windward side of St Vincent took us back into the Atlantic Ocean, as big and bold and boisterous as ever. The compass course was mostly 60 degrees, the wind mostly 90 deg, when it was not dead ahead.  The seas were a lumpy 2-3 metres with an agitated cross pattern on top; all of which conspired to stop Shanti dead in her tracks, wallowing up and down, going more sideways than forwards.

The 60 nautical mile passage took 11 hours, not too bad, considering some of it saw SOG (speed over ground) of only 1-2 knots against current. Arriving just on sunset, worn and weary, I made an uncommon mistake – I forgot to turn off the engine salt water intake valve.  It was a very rolly poly night with catabatic gusts reaching 40 knots; ideal conditions for syphoning water up into the engine. (I do believe the anti-syphon valve is supposed to prevent this, but after fitting two new ones to no avail, I suspect the height above water level is an issue).

Anyway, sure enough, the next morning when I opened the engine cover to turn the water on and discovered it still on, I knew that spelt trouble. Trouble with a capital T.

This is how it goes – put gear lever in neutral, full throttle; turn key to the reassuring shrill shriek of the oil pressure alarm; push start button; and “clunk”. Nothing. Or at least nothing that’s supposed to happen. Not the sweet grumble rumble of cold metal turning over; just the hard jarring thud of metal cogs refusing to mesh.

I have heard this before, several years ago when I didn’t know what it was, when the original anti-syphon valve had a small chock of wood plugging it, and I ignorantly kept on trying until I had torn all the teeth out of the starter motor. Not a good place to do that here in the undeveloped small bay at the south end of St Lucia where there are no other boats.

Now this is the good fortune in the bad, where something is learned (and remembered) from previous breakdowns.  It is also extremely fortunate that “Janis” the 3GM30 Yanmar diesel has 3 decompression levers on top, which when flicked up, allow a water-logged engine to turn over without firing, and gradually expel all the water from the cylinders.  Yay!! On the move again.

The wondrously grreat fortune of seeing sunsets like this most evenings.

The next exciting challenge had far more good fortune within the bad, which could have ended disastrously.



The magnificent Pitons.

It is not possible to anchor in the marine reserve of the Pitons, where the water close to the shore is around 40 metres deep There are 16 white plastic moorings available, at the cost of about $50 a night and young locals come out in dinghies to help pick up the ropes for a $5 fee. On top of this there’s a $35 marine reserve permit, so a couple of nights in this majestic spot is not cheap, but well worth it. The locals say the Pitons are the breasts of St Lucia that the town is nestled between.

The wind funnels fiercely down the buxom breasts and there’s a strong current swirling through the bay, so boats are often facing in all different directions. After one uncomfortable night I decided to move in closer to shore, so started up the engine, released the mooring, and backed away from it slowly.

About half way in toward the new mooring the engine suddenly stopped dead. I tried restarting it but got nothing. The gear lever was jammed tight and wouldn’t budge.

My mind was racing as we drifted powerlessly at the mercy of wind and tide. Wolfgang was nearby in his dinghy and called out to me to turn toward another free mooring that was downwind. He lined himself up there ready to catch us. Shanti was still moving at about 1 knot and I wondered if he’d be able to stop her. He did. And the second bit of good luck was I had had two lines set up at the bow, so he could grab one and quickly attach it to the heavy mooring rope before I sailed on by toward the rocks. 

My other line had blown off the deck as I reversed away from the first mooring, gone overboard and gotten wrapped around the propeller. I try not to beat myself up too much over this stupid mistake that could have cost me the boat.

Later that day, the third musketeer of our impromptu band, Hurgen, arrived in “Morwenna”, with his engine failed.  It's fantastically good fortune the way cruisers all help each other.

It was impossible to sail into the bay with the wind coming from all directions, so he had to be towed in by the young locals, who charged him $100 for the pleasure. Wolfgang also helped, but the 16 ton steel ketch put a hefty strain on his outboard, so I was lucky to have had its aid while it was still healthy. Later we had to help Wolfgang retrieve his dink when it somehow untied itself (must have used a "Jacquie knot") and went out to sea unattended.

Morwenna being towed into a mooring.

All of the towns on each of the Caribbean islands are completely different from one another, with the one common feature being the lavish use of colour.  

The next stop after the Pitons was Anse la Raye, a quaint village with many small houses that are just like a child would draw, with pitched roof and two windows each side of a door.

The village Council Office in Anse La Raye.

From there, it was another windward bash to Rodney Bay, which again, is a totally different scene, more like a mega tourist destination with money written all over it.  There is a vast marina development not unlike Queensland’s Gold Coast with pricey waterfront properties and private jetties lining man-made canals.

Not at all like the shacks only a few miles south of here. Where does all the money come from?

The shopping malls are glossy and full of everything except customers (waiting for the tourist season). There is a well-stocked Island Water World chandlery, which is good news for me. Over the past few anchorages my anchor winch has been struggling to lift anything heavier than a walnut and I decided a new motor might not be a bad idea before it ground to a halt completely. Luckily the very helpful store manager tracked one down for me in the USA, which should get Fed Ex’d here in a couple of days.

If you take your ship’s papers and customs documents with you the prices are ex VAT, so I did that this morning, once again with the help of Wolfgang’s bigger dinghy and now temperamental outboard.

The not so good luck was we both took a tumble into the drink as he was stepping aboard, I with my backpack on my back with all my documents, passports, money, phone, etc. I even took the two bags of shopping with me as I went, just as something to hang onto. 

Wolfgang didn’t see the funny side of it, but I couldn’t stop laughing.  Back on board Shanti, everything is spread to dry and the waterproof case on my iPhone seems to have done its job. Good luck hey!!

Very lucky to have good cruising buddies: Hurgen & Wolfgang.

 

No longer a reef virgin.

St Vincent and the Grenadines 3/11/18

One great advantage of the Caribbean chain of “Windward Islands” is their proximity to each other, often less than 10 nM apart.  For those of you without a map of this area in your head, here it is:

The lower section of the Windward Islands.  The red triangle is Shanti on the island of Mayreau.

Leaving Hog Island, it was a very pleasant 3 hour sail, just round the corner to the capital of Grenada, St George’s Bay.  The next day called for an earlier start for the longer haul of 35 nM to the island of Carriacou.

With 4 boats heading in the same direction, it’s always a bit of an unspoken race, and the conditions were ideal for Shanti to shine. We haven’t done much windward sailing on this circumnavigation, so it was a novelty to be punching into a stiff breeze at a perfect angle off the bow. It’s also a rare bonus to get photos of one’s own boat shot from outside of one’s own boat.

Our fearless leader, Wolfgang, on “Rosine” led from the rear, (bit like Peter Dransfield round Tassie), but he had already given us the benefit of his previous years’ spent in this area and directed us to the less densely populated spots. 

Sandy Island is just as the brochure promises, with the crystal clear turquoise waters and white sandy cays heralding the true arrival into the heart of the Caribbean. Time to enjoy my first underwater splashabout, marvelling at the abundance of colourfully curious reef fishies.

Christoph off "Leonora" enjoying a tow.

A downside to the exciting windward sail was that I lost most of my fresh water en route.  It took me a while to figure the origin of all the water that was sloshing about where it shouldn’t be, but I finally sussed it.  It was the same problem I had when first leaving Melbourne, beating to windward down Port Phillip bay – the inspection panels on the top of the water tanks leak when the tanks are full and Shanti is heeled right over on her ear. After several hours of bailing and mopping, the offending panel was once again removed, cleaned and re-siliconed, hopefully to stay watertight for a bit longer.

Strange as it may seem, many of the Windward Islands are independent countries, and it is necessary to go through all the formalities of checking out, clearing customs and immigration, getting passports stamped, etc, only to sail 6 miles or so to the next check in. Carriacou is part of Grenada; Union Island is the start of St Vincent & the Grenadines. Luckily the islands of this country continue up as far as St Lucia (British), before Martinique (French).  All rather confusing, but fortunate in that the SIM card bought for my phone in Grenada still works here in the Grenadines.

From Union Island, we anchored out near the fringing reef of Tobago Cays, which is kind of like being in the open sea, especially at high tide, when it can get a bit rolly poly. There are reefs everywhere in this area, which I discovered later to my peril.

Happy Island bar. Very cool.

Even cooler - dedicated dinghy dock.

But let me tell you first about last night. We had sailed round to the leeward side of Mayreau Island, (also part of Tobago Cays) where at first it seemed a bit more sheltered, especially in close to the cliffs. But later the rebounding swell made it unpleasant, so I moved in closer to the beach, perhaps a bit too close to the ferry wharf, which Wolfgang assured me only saw a daily bread delivery by a smallish vessel. Wrong!!

Just after 9 pm a loud horn blast announced the arrival of the not insignificant inter-island vehicular ferry. The wind had swung Shanti even closer to where she should not be. With lights splitting the pitch black night, the ferry was doing one of those ten-point turns, with engines in reverse, lining up the vehicle-loading ramp with the wharf -  but as we know, “operating astern propulsion” does not necessarily mean going backwards.  For heart-stopping moments it loomed nearer and nearer until I almost wondered if I should do something to fend off.  It was a terrifying thing to be in the billion candle-power spotlight like a stunned rabbit as the sheer metal cliff-face of this monster’s bow came within metres of running into me.

A more benign view of the ferry in the morning.

I could practically see the whites of the captain’s eyes, who was no doubt wondering what on earth this little insect was that was sitting directly in his path. But these ferry- drivers are highly skilled operators and so no paint was lost. The moment he had docked, I leapt into action, fired up my engine, lifted anchor and reversed blindly through the darkness, amongst mooring buoys and other boats to get as far away as possible, without courting further coronary. That was last night. This morning .... close encounters with the hard stuff ....

The view to the front. Glorious!

The view to the back. Not so nice.

 

Hey Alex Hall and Ronnie and other SYC’s – we are now in "Salt Whistle Bay", which will forever be known for the loss of Shanti’s virginity to going on a reef. Ouch!  That is such a painful experience.

“Janis”, Shanti’s trusty Yanmar engine has developed this nasty little idiosyncrasy of stalling during, or just after lifting the anchor. I have read it could be due to old age, low compression, being a bit “cokey”, or any number of other possibilities, most of which fit the bill. I have learnt certain tricks to get round this, such as putting her into slow reverse gear first, which mostly works, but sometimes not.

This morning was a NOT. And with the reef only metres away, the timing could not have been worse.  I had gotten myself into a tight corner and dropped the pick in weed, too close to the reef behind, so had to re-anchor. But half way through the first hoist, I heard the high pitched squeal of the engine alarm, telling me she had stalled. I ran back to the cockpit and started her up again but once the anchor was free, again, no power, and we were drifting reefward.  I watched in horror as the depth sounder showed 0.5, 0.3, 0.1, 0.0. Bump, bump!!  Aaargghh!

Convoluted tracks of panic.

Luckily the wind was not strong, and with a local boat and Wolfgang’s dinghy to the rescue we managed to quickly get back into floating depth.  I dove straight after and couldn’t see any damage - just a few inches near the bottom with slightly less slime on the antifoul, and perhaps a few more ripples in the cast iron sole. So it could have been worse, but it’s still a very distressing thing to have happen. Such is the price of trying to edge into a calmer corner of the bay.